Video: The exposure triangle

Robbie Carman: So Rich, we introduced the idea of the exposure triangle and obviously a triangle, three points, right. Rich Harrington: Yeah Robbie Carman: What are those three points? Rich Harrington: Well, we have the exposure and that's the end goal of all of them. So in the middle is a properly exposed image. On one side, you're going to basically have the ISO. Robbie Carman: Mm-hm. Rich Harrington: And that's going to be the overall sensitivity of the sensor in the camera. Now, there's a base ISO, and you could turn that up or down. And as cameras have evolved, we went from having ISOs where, you know, 1 to 400 was good, to where shooting with 1,200 could be noiseless these days.

This weekly course covers the most common questions videographers encounter when shooting and editing with DSLR cameras, from choosing a frame size and frame rate to understanding moiré. Authors Rich Harrington and Robbie Carman will also help you understand the impacts of compression and the difference between cropped (or micro 4/3rds) and full-sized sensors in cameras, and much more. This continual FAQ guide is a handy way to find the answers to the questions that plague you the most.

The exposure triangle

Robbie Carman: So Rich, we introduced the idea ofthe exposure triangle and obviously a triangle, three points, right.Rich Harrington: YeahRobbie Carman: What are those three points?Rich Harrington: Well, we have the exposure andthat's the end goal of all of them.So in the middle is a properly exposed image.On one side, you're going to basically have the ISO.Robbie Carman: Mm-hm.Rich Harrington: And that's going to be theoverall sensitivity of the sensor in the camera.Now, there's a base ISO, and you could turn that up or down.And as cameras haveevolved, we went from having ISOs where, you know, 1 to 400was good, to where shooting with 1,200 could be noiseless these days.

Robbie Carman: Oh, it's amazing.I mean, it seems that you're absolutely right.When, especially, you know, at the higher level, and it trickles down.I mean some cameras now it's not uncommon to see ISOsas high as a 1,000, 1,200, even 1,600 and that justmeans that those, those sensors are amazingly sensitive to light andare pretty, you know, don't have a lot of noise there andyou're not going to have to have as manylights or you know have as many attachable things.In other words they can see in the dark.Rich Harrington: Which is good.And then we have the other two sights.So there's the actual sensitivity of the sensor.Balanced out with how much light, hits that sensor.

An that's really going to be the aperture, which is the opening of the camera lens.Now, we have a nice, prime lens on this camera.It's going to down to an aperture of 1.8. The smaller thenumber, the bigger the hole.Robbie Carman: And that's something that is kind of counter intuitive.You'd go oh I want an aperture of abigger number, because Ray, everything in technology, bigger is better.Rich Harrington: Bigger, better.It's the Best Buy, it's the Best Buy algorithm.Robbie Carman: Absolutely right.But that's not the case when it comes to lenses and comes to cameras.That lower that number, the wider or, or more open the actuallens is going to be to allow light to come into the camera.

So in other words, a, a stop of 1.2 is going tolet more light in than say 5.6.Rich Harrington: And it's also going to let moremoney out of your wallet if you're shopping.Robbie Carman: This is true, Rich makes a good point.The more, the lower aperture number that you can find, especially in primelenses and zoom lenses, that's going to mean more dollars out of your wallet.Those lenses are typically more expensive because they're more expensive to produce.There's more glass, the glass has to be more refined, and so on and so forth.So just keep that in mind when you're looking for a lens.Rich Harrington: Andthe last component is going to be the overall shutter speed.

Now, what's happening with shutter speed is, it ties back to to the days of film.And essentially what you do is you take the FrameRate multiply it by 2 and put a 1 on top.And this is going to give you the base shutter speed.So typically it'd be a 48th or a 50th if youwere shooting 24p, a 60th if you were shooting at 30.But these numbers are going to vary, and when wego out in the field later you're going to seehow sometimes we cheat. But as a base exposure this kind of works.And I think what we should do.Is properly expose a shot right now, and sort of walk people through that.

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